The other four assistants all decided to speak up as well, but none were as hilarious as Number Two and Number One was a threat to every single man out there.
“Alright. So we have the first two major projects of this little group-“
“Three!”
“-uh, fine. Three Projects.” The Armorer wanted to work on the gun idea. He acted like a spoiled brat who was suddenly denied a toy so Kohn thought it would be easier to just work on it then trying to get him to focus on something else first. “We have the project to get closer to the Jzanna, surviving in space and… yes, the gun.”
“YES!” Well, at least it was easy to appease him with a simple project.
Since Kohn had the knowledge of Earth and thought differently than the rest of them. the first thing he did was to describe what he already saw on Earth.
He wanted to work on the more important projects first but it was clear with how deep the Armorer was invading his personal space that he wouldn’t tolerate any further delays.
“The smallest gun, a pistol generally falls into two categories that look a little something like this…”
So Kohn made a drawing of a revolver and another of a magazine fed pistol and labeled all their components. Before he could even say ‘done’ the Armorer had ripped the sheets out from under his pen and retreated to a corner; his gaze roving every inch of the drawings like a pervert.
Shivering in disgust Kohn drowned himself in more sketches and notes, trying to forget the image of the big man huddling and drooling in the corner.
The Spacesuit, a simple yet complicated garment, was designed specifically to allow humans to survive in the cold recesses of space. Of course the Earth version wasn’t anywhere near capable for combat with the Jzanna so he gave Numbers Two, Three and Six the job of designing something that would be. Handing them some paper with everything that he could remember, he gave them a few ideas that he had thought of.
“Since the suit is only able to retain heat and air it won’t be useful to fight in. But if you can come up with a way to use magic to retain both in a smaller, more maneuverable suit we can add armor plates to protect anyone fighting.”
“If we’re going to use magic to make a smaller suit, we could also use magic to create shields. Why don’t we just use magic?”
“Well, how much magic would that take?”
“Hmmm.” The assistants nodded their heads at each other in some kind of telepathic, non-telepathic conversation.
“And how much magic could a suit of armor have total?”
“Hmm.” They nodded again, but other than that they didn’t answer him.
“And how much time could they fight in space if they are constantly using magic to survive and fight?”
“Hmm.” He understood that it was a habit of theirs to not speak and they probably developed some kind of method to understand each other, but it was really irritating not being a part of the conversation.
“Just take these and go away.” He handed the drawings and notes to them before sending them back to their work stations.
Seeing new ideas and drawings the other assistants grew excited and couldn’t wait for what he’d give them.
“I don’t have anything to give you about your idea #1.”
They froze in shock, their excited faces went slack.
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“Nothing?”
Was Number One starting to cry? Shit.
Seeing Number One, a grown muscular man crying made Kohn feel sad. He scoured his brain trying to think of something that they could work on.
“Ladders, stilts, hang gliders, smaller space ships, uh… jet packs?” Number One looked confused at the terminology that only existed on Earth.
“Yeah. Jetpacks. Something like an attachment on your back that concentrates energy and pushes it out behind you to make you fly.”
Kohn drew some designs to the best of his knowledge, but since he knew very little about the actual process behind jet packs he could only create concept arts.
Once the assistants and their boss were given the basics they started working on each project as best they could. However, due to their linear thought process they would often return to Kohn for more information or help on what how something was actually supposed to achieve its purpose.
“No no no! You can’t have exposed skin. If the suit has any kind of hole in it the air will escape into space and the person inside will be killed… it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t look good it’s meant to be functional… What? This is just a box with straps and some tubes in it… RUUUUUUNNNNNN!”
Occasionally the Armorer would try to test fire his version of a ‘gun’ but after the first attempt in which he clicked it and said “uh oh” they no longer trusted him.
Of course Kohn didn’t help them all the time. He mostly just came in at the beginning and told them where they did something wrong or gave suggestions on the designs so that magic formations could be placed more easily.
For the most part he would go back to training.
Exercising while studying large numbers of magic formations. After all the practice he was thankful that he was getting more and more familiar with them. It was getting to the point that they were becoming as easy to remember as breathing.
To reward him the Armorer gave him more time to work on the gun project, but after the deadpan stares he switched tactics.
“Congratulations. You officially have graduated to level 1 Arms.”
Yep, he was finally given a weapon that wasn’t level 0. Even if it was just the heavy metal wrist bands he was still happy. Tears were coming out.
After the assistants helped put them on him though he couldn’t wipe away the tears. He could barely even lift his arms.
“What gives? These things are so heavy I can’t even move!”
“Activate the formations idiot!”
He had already noticed the formations on the solid metal Arms but they were ones that he hadn’t seen before. “What do they do?”
“What do they do? HAHAHAHA!” The Armorer laughed at him for not being able to read the formations.
“You’ve never shown me a formation with five points before?”
“HAHAHAHA-ugh!” He choked on his laughter. “Oh that’s right isn’t it?”
Turns out that the formations made things lighter as long as magic was pumped into them. So his level 1 Arms were simply larger, heavier and they had a magic formation on them that would make them weigh less.
He also learned the differences behind weapon levels.
A weapon is considered level 0 no matter what it’s made out of as long as it doesn’t have any magic formation on it. Meaning that it’s simply a brute force weapon with a ‘hit it till it dies’ kind of usage.
A level 1 weapon actually has a magic formation on it, but only support magic. Such as the weight change or a small shield. Typically it’s an enhancement designed to increase the durability and sharpness of the weapon. In a few cases it’ll return the weapon to the user if it’s been thrown.
Level 2 weapons are considered to be a non-training weapon. Meaning that its magic is designed to do something else that will severely hurt the opponent.
When Kohn asked for more information on level 2 weapons and beyond he ducked as the Armorer threw a large plier type tool at him.
“Can I add more magic formations to my Arms?”
“No, there isn’t enough space.”
“What if we put a thin metal plate on top?”
“Then it would cover the other formations and they couldn’t be used.”
Remembering all the times the Armorer changed magic formations he had an idea. “What if you put the plate on it and had the formations over the plate and the Arms, but when the plate moves it changes the formation?”
Jaws dropped all around as they thought about it.
“That…”
“Make things easier, right?”
“How could we have never thought about it before?”
“We change formations all the time, but we never thought about using it for equipment.”
Kohn was lost, but he figured it was a good idea by how much they were all talking about it.
“What formations would you want on it?”
“Well,” he always dreamed about this ever since he was a kid and played his very first game “could you put a formation on it to generate a Mana Ball?”
“Easily.”
Kohn was so happy. The Mana Ball spell was exactly as its name sounds. You concentrate mana into a ball before shooting it at an enemy.
“So we’ll call the metal plate a slide. If you move the slide forward over the hand the Mana Ball formation will appear. Putting mana into it will generate the blast and you can then fire it at the enemy.”
“If we do it that way the armor will be heavy and difficult to move.”
“Not if you add another part to the Arms that sits at the bicep. Have that be the light weight spell.”
“Then the Arms can have a second third magic formation on it.”
“Maybe, but this way we have the first major ideas behind the Space Suit and the Magic Gun!”
The Armorer became upset. “It’s not a gun! It’s still just a magic imbued Arms.”
“Fine. We’ll call it the Buster Arms!”